In Germany’s electoral campaigns voters often receive coalition signals of parties which give them information about the coalition preferences of at least a subset of parties. The reaction of the electorate to these signals can be studied by looking at the combination of the first (constituency vote for a candidate) and the second (vote for a closed party list) votes. For all Bundestag elections from 1953 to 2005, representative splitting tables of first and second votes are investigated. In addition, a second data set is used, consisting of a content analysis of articles in mass media and articles in academic publications on the respective federal elections. In order to be labelled as coalition signals, they had to be given by high representatives of the respective parties. They could be either positive or negative. It becomes clear that the coalition signals can predict the type of vote splitting very well between CDU/CSU and FDP and also between SPD and FDP. In contrast, the trend toward splitting between SPD and the Greens is less obvious. The main finding can also be maintained when possible influences of other variables are controlled for in a log linear analysis.